by Editor Swapnil.
Published the 24th of May 2020
 

As the world finds itself amidst a predicament one beyond imaginations, life still goes on. From the confines of our minds we create art as it is rightly said that “art is what is inside you rather than what is outside”.

2020 brought with it some terrible new related to travel and since majority of photographer practising art require to travel around, it came as a shock as plans were cancelled, and worst of all we were required to be in the confines of our home.

'Seclusion' by Margareth Perfoncio

 
It is but natural to think that how a landscape or a wildlife photographer will be expected to create art when his basics have been taken away. 

Lot of people I have talked to have told me they refrain from shooting and depend on YouTube or video lessons related to photography to keep them sharp when the opportunity comes up to shoot.

Many others have also told me they try shooting in their home creating abstracts, still life, portraits ,multiple exposures and trying things they have never done before. This period certainly has given us a lot of chances to explore things which we have never tested before and experiment in the time that we have on our hand. It is certainly best to keep our mind immersed in our hobby and keep all the negative thoughts out of the mind as we all know that empty mind can be a devil’s workshop!

I’ll try to summarize a few genres of images and the wonderful art works by 1x photographers in the article below.

STILL LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
One of the easiest things to begin photography at home can be still life photography. The study of life is of paramount importance in this genre and arrangement of subjects and creating a cohesive composition is of utmost importance. In the old time painters studied light falling on the surface of the objects and that was how the painters achieved the realism in their images.

Still life Photography just picked from the painters and continued an in-depth study of light and compositions. To add a twist to still life images many of us can add elements like multiple exposure or arranging items to create humour and create art that can create an awe and satisfy us a lot especially since it was created in the confines of our home and not spending a penny on travel!

Below set of beautiful images were created with food items with light accentuating the details and creating stunning visuals with common subjects.

'Still life with lemons' by Tatyana Skorokhod

'Still life with Pumpkins and Basket' by UstinaGreen

'still life / fruits' by Emine Basa

'Paper bag' by Christophe Verot

'Still Life with Cherries' by Christian MARCEL

'Study in Black and Red' by Jacqueline Hammer

'And now...? Eat? Part1' by Wieteke de Kogel

CONCEPTUAL ART
Apart from food, items from daily use as shown in images below can be arranged well to amplify mood created by light or add humour to the images and also create conceptual visions giving message from the artworks.

Conceptual work involves an idea to be created beforehand in brain and then executed in physical world and then with camera work to induce life in the artwork. Conceptual images can be very difficult to create given the fact that it needs to be thought not only from the lens and camera point of view but also a strong concept, which comes totally from the thoughts in your mind.

Images below from 1x photographers can teach us in a great way to create our own body of work in this genre.

'Reflection of life' by Delphine Devos

'Raute Nimmersatt' by Dorothea Garbisch

'My New Baby' by Kim Lennert Simonsen

'Still life with egg' by Peter Hrabinsky

'communication' by Sajad Maktoobian

'Ebony and Ivory' by Udo Dittmann

FLOWERS
Flowers, both in form of bouquets or in our home gardens are one of the most amazing subjects to create still life and conceptual images. The huge array of natural colours and the textures are a great set of pre-requisites to create abstract art from them.

Tango Argentino' by holger droste

'Good Friday 2020' by Pia Mihailowitsch

'Through the light' by Saskia Dingemans

'StillLife in pink color' by UstinaGreen

'Still Life with Blueberries' by Lydia Jacobs

'Floral Garden' by Sharon Williams

'Tulips' by Allan Wallberg

'swaying gentle in the breeze' by Gilbert Claes

WATER AND OIL
Applying yourself in a particular direction and experimenting in deep can render some exquisite art.  The best part about indoor photography is that you can control the ambient light and amplify the mood by simply the direction of it.

One such very simple object can be water or oil droplets and making abstraction of them using colour solutions and light. Because of the surface tensions of oil and water the mixture of them renders beautiful spheres touching at one single points and extremely malleable and changing the form. The large and small sizes of spheres can be abstracted to the solar system arrangement of planets or just a floral shape object. Here are some amazing examples below.

'Imagine...' by Geert Deleu

'Eye of Light' by Alessandro Zocchi

'Alternatives.' by Natalia Baras

'Golden rings' by Heidi Westum

'Intruder in red II' by Heidi Westum

'Black to White' by Jacqueline Hammer

'Morning Wave' by Jacqueline Hammer

Other than still life, one can also apply themselves to macro, portraiture ,and abstracts forms in photography. What’s most important is to keep applying yourself and keep moving forward.
These are certainly boring and frustrating times for sure, but then when the going gets tough, the tough you get going. 

Keep applying yourselves in various art forms, divide your times between the essential things needed to be done and make sure you keep your brain busy !

Arts, in any form is one of the strongest force to keep us in sane mindset.

I wish to see all of you amazing artists on the other side of the world safe and sound.
Wishing everyone the best!